Zhang Yimou has made some movies I've loved, and some movies I could do without, but this is the first one I've come across that I stopped watching in the middle of.
While billed as a "comedy," there's nothing especially funny in this slice-of-live drama about a woman determined to force an apology out of the village chief. It's basically a bunch of taciturn people bundled up for the winter frowning and chatting.
Certainly this is a good movie to get a sense of 1990s China, since it portrays both the simple, basic country life while also showing you the cities. And it does give a sense of the Chinese justice system, which is certainly bureaucratic but actually seems more reasonable than you would expect from most western portrayals of communism.
But it's just very dull, and comedy or not, the lives of the protagonists seem tedious and bleak.
I know it's a big art-house hit, but for me this is very skippable.
While billed as a "comedy," there's nothing especially funny in this slice-of-live drama about a woman determined to force an apology out of the village chief. It's basically a bunch of taciturn people bundled up for the winter frowning and chatting.
Certainly this is a good movie to get a sense of 1990s China, since it portrays both the simple, basic country life while also showing you the cities. And it does give a sense of the Chinese justice system, which is certainly bureaucratic but actually seems more reasonable than you would expect from most western portrayals of communism.
But it's just very dull, and comedy or not, the lives of the protagonists seem tedious and bleak.
I know it's a big art-house hit, but for me this is very skippable.